19/08/2020
4 ⭐
“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”

I have seen people raving about this book non-stop on my Twitter feed lately so I finally decided, enough is enough and put the audiobook on, only to discover that I have been seriously missing out! This book isn't perfect and really slows down in the middle (part 1 was my favourite but damn it got me again in the last couple of chapters!). It's also relentlessly heartbreaking and brutal and can be so so hard to stomach. Also, I highly recommend, that reading chapter 21 not be the first thing you do when you wake up because oh boy, will it set the tone for the rest of your day!

So, yeah, what can I say? R. F. Kuang has done something really special with The Poppy War and I absolutely cannot wait to see what she does next!

Trigger Warnings: Parental abandonment, Abuse (physical, mental - on-page), Drug use, Drug addiction, War themes, Self-harm, Racism, Misogyny, Genocide, Bullying, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Graphic depictions of death, Torture, Murder & very graphic depictions of rape, Graphic murder of a pregnant lady (7/8 months), Tearing of a baby from a mother's stomach and then the murder of the baby (Graphic!), Graphic depictions of the mass murder of entire communities, racial experimental (not consented to).

Blog | Letterboxd | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter